Mall offers food for thought

Art exhibit will be donated to food pantry

Published 6:30 am, Thursday, February 24, 2005

Willowbrook Mall soon will be home to a dozen art sculptures that look good enough to eat.

Using a minimum of 1,000 non-perishable food items, the sculptures will be created by various nonprofit groups, business groups and charitable organizations.

The food eventually will be donated to Northwest Assistance Ministries, a multi-program social service agency.

This year's Art for the Hungry theme is "America the Beautiful," which the Rotary Club of Willowbrook plans to honor by creating an American flag.

"It won't be up on a pole or anything like that, but it will have the illusion as if it's waving," said club member Teresa Mueller.

"You have to take all the cans of food and tape them together for support. You can also use plywood, so you're able to be very imaginative in getting a structure together."

The Rotary Club has been participating in the event since it first started six years ago, Mueller said.

"One year we did 'the old woman who lived in a shoe,' another time we had an F-17 fighter jet flying through the clouds and we've done the Washington Monument," Mueller said. "Last year, we did a Trojan horse."

About 30 of her students plan to create the Liberty Bell, known for ringing in 1776 to summon citizens for the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence.

"We want to have it suspended so it looks like it can really ring," Bouley said. "We're building a skeletal infrastructure ahead of time to use as the base, and then we'll tape the food to the outside of it. It's intriguing to create a sculpture out of unusual objects, and help the NAM group."